Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences

124 Pages·1996·10.346 MB·English

by  Immanuel Wallerstein

Open the Social Sciences
Report oft he
Gulbenkian Commission
on the Restructuring oft he
Social Sciences

Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© Igg6 by the Board of Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University
Printed in the United States of America
CIP data appear at the end of the book
Contents
Foreword Calouste GulbenkianFoundation IX
Members of the Commission Xlll
1. The Historical Construction of the
Social Sciences, from the Eighteenth
Century to I945 I
n. Debates Within the Social Sciences,
I945 to the Present 33
r. The Validity ofthe Distinctions among the Social
Sciences ...3 6 2. The Degree to Which the Heritage
Is Parochial...48 3· The Reality and Validity of the
Distinction Between the "1\vo Cultures" ... 6o
m. What Kind of Social Science Shall
We Now Build?
r. Humans and Nature ... 78 2. The State as an
Analytic Building Block ... 8o 3· The Universal
and the Particular ... 85 4· Objectivity ... go
Conclusion: Restructuring the
IV.
Social Sciences 94

Foreword
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation sponsored, in
the second half of the 1g8o's, what became a first, fruitful phase
of the project Portugal !WOO, generating valuable reflections
about the framework for and main issues concerning the pos
sible or probable trajectories of the Portuguese nation at the
dawn of the twenty-first century. These thoughts and investiga
tions have been published, in Portuguese, in the series "Portu
gal-The Next 1\venty Years."
A5; this initiative unfolded, the Foundation further sought to
support reflections and endeavors on issues of a global nature
and on problems whose consideration and solutions are deemed
crucial to the common search by society for a better future. In
this context, a survey of the social sciences and the role they per
form, in terms both of the relations among the disciplines and of
their relationship with the humanities and the natural sciences,
seemed appropriate. The great intellectual achievements of the
X FOREWORD
past thirty to forty years leading to the modern study of life
and to the science of complexity, the emerging need for "contex
tualization" of universalisms (which urges an increasing dia
logue between cultures), and the growth of university education
since the late 195o's all have strongly influenced the practice of
social scientists, yet left precious little room for preoccupa
tions of a structural and organizational nature. In the present
state of their evolution, should overcoming the existing disci
plinary structure not be considered a central dilemma for the so
cial sciences?
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation thus welcomed a pro
posal by Professor Immanuel Wallerstein, Director of the Fer
nand Brandel Center of Binghamton University, to conduct a
distinguished international group of scholars-six from the so
cial sciences, two from the natural sciences, and two from the
humanities-in a reflection on the present social sciences and
their future. Consequently, the Gulbenkian Commission on the
Restructuring of the Social Sciences was created in July 1993,
with Professor Wallerstein as its chair. Its composition reflects
both the depth and the wide perspective that was necessary to
achieve the analysis presented in the text that follows.
Open the Social Sciences is a serious, generous, and provoca
tive book, which faithfully depicts the atmosphere and the vivac
ity of the Gulbenkian Commission's exchanges during the two
year period that followed its creation. Three plenary meetings
were held: the first at the Foundation's headquarters in Lisbon
in June 1994, the second at the Maison des Sciences del 'Homme
in Paris in January 1995, and the third at the Fernand Brandel
Center in Binghamton in April 1995. Its intellectual level is pri-